Quote:
"But when current affairs are in such a parlous state, it's almost unforgivable to make a film about stupid American men traveling abroad with not the slightest awareness of or reference to anything that's going on in the world."
That's the most contrived way to pick on a film I've read in a while, it's just oozing with a desire to find a fault in the movie and failing to do so basicaly making something up.
Anderson's movies alway happen in a sort of fantasy world, removed from historical or geographical realities. The seas in Life Aquatic are a mixture of pacific tropics, the indian ocean and the mediterranian, with no real indication of where it's actualy going on, or when. A lot of great movies is the same, and often that's part of what makes them great, removed from the everyday and put above time and space, as a legitimate work of art. Of course there is another kind of great movie that deals exactly with the problems of the world. An example of the latter would be Apocalypse Now, while an example of the former is 8 1/2. Anderson does not work in the historical/political vein, he is clearly influenced by european, french and simmilar filmmakers.
The job od making movies about "how things are in the world" is not Anderson's job and it's pointless to criticise him for that. Current affairs are always lost to future generations. Art is art exactly because it trascends the current and the political.
Quote:
"But when current affairs are in such a parlous state, it's almost unforgivable to make a film about stupid American men traveling abroad with not the slightest awareness of or reference to anything that's going on in the world."
That's the most contrived way to pick on a film I've read in a while, it's just oozing with a desire to find a fault in the movie and failing to do so basicaly making something up.
Anderson's movies alway happen in a sort of fantasy world, removed from historical or geographical realities. The seas in Life Aquatic are a mixture of pacific tropics, the indian ocean and the mediterranian, with no real indication of where it's actualy going on, or when. A lot of great movies is the same, and often that's part of what makes them great, removed from the everyday and put above time and space, as a legitimate work of art. Of course there is another kind of great movie that deals exactly with the problems of the world. An example of the latter would be Apocalypse Now, while an example of the former is 8 1/2. Anderson does not work in the historical/political vein, he is clearly influenced by european, french and simmilar filmmakers.
The job od making movies about "how things are in the world" is not Anderson's job and it's pointless to criticise him for that. Current affairs are always lost to future generations. Art is art exactly because it trascends the current and the political.